Archive for January 2005

They blame it on the anti-trust lawsuit. I think that’s a convenient scapegoat, given how many other features they’ve already ripped out of Longhorn in a desperate attempt to finish the thing before we all drive slowly on Sunday mornings with our blinkers continuously on.

Microsoft Corp. has no immediate plans to integrate desktop search into its operating system, a company executive said at a conference here this weekend.
Speaking on a panel on search technology at the Harvard Business School’s Cyberposium, Mark Kroese, general manager of information services and merchant platform product marketing for MSN, said the federal antitrust battle Microsoft waged with the government has made the company think twice about what technologies it can add to the operating system.

Movie beauty LARA FLYNN BOYLE has been accused of stripping nude and trying to seduce a fellow passenger during a recent first-class flight to London. […]
But they were stunned when she stripped off her clothes and tried to climb into the bed of a sleeping stranger.

I know some despair the lack of “innovation” from the Mac Mini, but it seems to me to be hitting all the right buttons that Mac needed right now. Not only does it open up a new audience to the Mac, but now it might be opening up a major new channel for retailing. If Mac can make inroads into Best Buys beyond just the iMac and accessories, it would be a very big thing.

Best Buy may begin selling Macs again, which in turn could accelerate the iPod halo affect, according to a report released by Merrill Lynch. The analyst firm said that the consumer electronic retailer could begin to sell Macs–specifically the Mac mini-again by the end of February, based on information relayed by a retail manager and indications on Best Buy’s Website that the Mac mini would be available soon at retail stores; however, the firm said that neither Best Buy nor Apple would confirm such a move.

Now that the 2005 Pepsi bottlecap giveaway is under way, iTunes users everywhere are headed to their local stores in the name of finding iTunes-eligible products so that they could do their best to lose. But stores nationwide are full of Pepsi bottles that only have a two-thirds chance of losing — far from a certainty. However, the iPod Garage has devised a strategy that guarantees a losing cap every time. Read on to find out how to play the iTunes-Pepsi contest and never win:

[Leroy] Wells, 22, of Grand Bay, was arrested Jan. 5 on charges of assault and firing a weapon. Jail records show he’s also awaiting trial on drug charges and has pleaded guilty to marijuana possession in 2004 and disorderly conduct in June 2003.

THE APPRENTICE is already falling victim to itself. This might be a record-breaking speed from great to terribly shallow and full of itself. It’s a cycle that just about all reality shows go through. The original cast members don’t know what they’re in for, really, and there’s a certain charm to the whole thing. The second cast has a better idea, but there’s still an excitement in the air. By the third show, the formula starts morphing and the casting becomes one done for conflict and drama over “getting the job done.”

If I were Trump, I’d fire all the remaining contestants today and move on with my life. Season Three is a disaster so far. Burnett did a great job in casting strong personalities that are guaranteed to never get along. He’s amped up the drama at the price of the interesting decisions and business lessons that the show once featured. Now, it’s just a race to see who acts like the least of the idiots.

On the other hand, there’s a certain fascination with watching train wrecks. That’s what this season is. It’s the train wreck you watch for the immediate satisfaction of how the formula will completely break down today. Next week, someone quits, more fights happen, and Trump will undoubtedly get flustered and have a self-deprecating joke to make about it.

Wednesday night’s season premiere of MTV’s “The Ashlee Simpson Show” — the first half of a two-part story arc — captured the entire fiasco as it unfolded last fall when Simpson walked off the stage during a live “SNL” telecast after a tape-recording of a song she had performed earlier on the show began to play.

Dont worry if you missed it; MTV will be repeating it ad infinitum for the next three years.

After producing the infamous Janet Jackson halftime show last year, MTV will launch a new look to its sister station, MTV2, during the Feb. 6 game break. MTV and MTV2 will both air a preview special of MTV2, featuring a combination of music, shows and random content aimed at young males. […]
MTV2, a network showing mostly videos since 1996, will launch a new format at midnight on Feb. 7. The new MTV2 is composed of music videos, new shows, graphics and random clips “that have been scoured from the Internet, old B-movies and the public service dustbin.”

Cincinnati-based Intelliseek, for one, plans to monitor positive and negative commentary about commercials in more than 3.5 million blogs, charging advertisers upward of $20,000 for its intelligence. That’s about 1 percent of the $2.4 million price tag for a 30-second spot during the game this year, up from $2.3 million last year.

It’s still a bad idea to sing a song from “The Lion King” complete with funny cartoon voices. It’s still a bad idea to be a bad Elvis impersonator or make anything Simon will refer to as “stabbing motions” while doing your best Neil Diamond. It’s still a bad idea to sing “Thriller” in a manner so creepy and disturbing that it will make people want to change their phone numbers and go into hiding just because they watched it on television. It’s still a bad idea to be the worst person ever to sing “Lady Marmalade” on “American Idol” — it’s an accomplishment, mind you, but that doesn’t make it smart.